Home Theaters

    S3 has been a company without a vision for a time now, seeming to be unsure of where to put its efforts. A long time player in the graphics market, S3 was once a major player - for a second or two.

    Since the advent of nVidia, the market has been basically a two horse race. With the faltering of ATi after the AMD merger/buyout, there is definitely room for some other talent in the mix.

    SiS has removed itself from the marketplace, except in the area of integrated graphics, so S3 once again becomes David to the two (some would now say one and a half) Goliaths.

    Not only will S3 be releasing new cards, the designs will be adventurous efforts. Two cards have been announced, both are DirectX 10 compliant, and the model Chrome 430 is slated to be 10.1 compliant.

    The Chrome 430 will be built using a 65 nanometer process, and will also feature HDMI connection, and have HDCP on chip. While this is nothing new for the big guys, it is assumed that these features will be available at a reduced price point in the S3 offerings, so as to gain a leg up on the competition. The Chrome 460 will be the less advanced model, supporting only DirectX 10, and being a 90 nanometer process part. Since VIA purchased S3, it is probably safe to assume that the Chrome 4xx series will be very low power designs, and will also find usage on the next series of mini-ITX boards offered for extremely small form factor offerings. The chips that make it onto discrete graphics boards will all be of the PCI Express variety - there will be no AGP models released.

    Although not a performance leader in the last 10 years, it has been noted that with each iteration, S3 offerings gain performance on the leading designs from ATi and nVidia. Also the Chrome and DeltaChrome designs have been very good in the area of full motion video, turning in excellent performance with low power needs.

    This should position these cards in a very good place  for those who wish to build a high quality home theater PC, while not having to use an ultra-high power, and high dollar power supply. The idea of a small form PC with a small quiet power supply sitting in the living room, with great full motion capability, and low heat and noise should appeal to a wide audience.